Lior always has a good idea of what kind of music I like. Yesterday, she sent me a link to Brett‘s song “Claire Drained”, a new track from the Washington, DC bands’ sophomore album Mode. I missed the press release earlier that day, which happens more often than I’d like to admit, especially when I’m filtering through over 100 submissions a day. I find it kinda means more when a friend passes music along.

Unlike previous material, Mode inspirations are diverse, owing more to multimedia art than romance, namely Jean-Luc Godard’s recent film, Goodbye to Language. “The defining quote for me was: ‘For women, it’s only sex and death. For men, it’s only infinity and zeroes,’” said vocalist Mick Coogan. “It’s a fairly opaque statement, but I think the irony lies in assigning absolutes to human relationships, which can be so beautiful and inspiring. At the same time, the fundamental differences between men and women are very real and that shit is difficult to figure out.”

The album’s art was created as a large-scale painting by LA artist, Charley Alexander, using abstracted patterns, shapes and colour scales, and then cut into 50 squares. Each square will be sold with limited edition pre-order copies of the vinyl record, giving their fans a chance to make a closer connection to the music.